From: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org (believers-digest) To: believers-digest@smoe.org Subject: believers-digest V3 #124 Reply-To: believers@smoe.org Sender: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk believers-digest Sunday, June 6 1999 Volume 03 : Number 124 In Today's believer's digest: ----------------- Susan at May's Chapel [Bob Scott ] Appel Farm Review (LONG) ["Tim Dunleavy" ] Re: Appel Farm Review ["Ron Rosen" ] bring on the pins/shirts!!!! [Leslie Dreyer Kalra ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 05 Jun 1999 10:51:47 -0400 From: Bob Scott Subject: Susan at May's Chapel Great show last night. Susan was fresh off a one week break and provided the (sadly NOT sold out) house to a low-key, intimate evening of entertainment. Jane provided a bonus floor-show when the jack on Susan's guitar started acting up - there's nothing that girl can't fix with gaffer tape. Of note: - All Martin Show: I guess she's getting bored with the Parker Fly. - New Songs: I got to hear "In Brazil I Didn't Have A Shadow" again and I'm really falling for it. Sort of reminds me of Kenia. She played three other songs I haven't heard, "Nostalgia" (for lack of the real name) was great as was a new "standard" she did on the piano. No problem filling a new album at this rate. - New hair! I just can't keep up... Susan chatted with fans for at least 45 minutes after the show - I got a picture I'd taken of her at Wolf Trap autographed (the first exhibit for my new satellite Susan Shrine at work), blathered something incoherent to her and wandered off (Mr. Suave, that's me!). The highlight of the evening was having the title of "honorary roadies" bestowed on me and my girlfriend by Jane, after which we helped her load stuff into the truck (sic transit glori mundi). [As someone on the list has mentioned earlier, Jane is the best kept secret of the act. Don't let the Rolling Stones Roadie Glower (tm) put you off, she's a sweetheart and usually has some funny story to tell if you catch her after a show. (For the Susan-newbies: Jane is the pretty, dark-haired woman dressed like Johnny Cash who hands guitars to Susan. She's Susan's road manager/technical support/accountant/etc.)] HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at songs.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 22:33:38 -0400 From: "Tim Dunleavy" Subject: Appel Farm Review (LONG) Just got back from Appel Farm, where I had a great day-- highlighted, of course, by Susan's performance. (And Stacey Earle was great, also. Oh, yeah-- and meeting Courtney, and catching up with Charlie too. Don't want to leave anyone out!) First things first: Leslie, what happened? You managed to stop by the XPN booth during one of my bathroom breaks! I was only gone for five minutes, then I pretty much remained rooted there for two more hours. Never got to see you. Ah well. OK, now to the show. Susan was the ONLY performer at the Grove Stage to get an encore! (Not even the headliner, Bruce Cockburn, got that.) That should give you an indication of how delightful her performance was, and how much the crowd here loves her. She mentioned that there were several friends in the audience. (How many performances at the festival is this for Susan?) Here's the Set List, with in-between raps where relevant. 1. Flying Dream Just like at May's Chapel (according to Bob), her guitar jack was acting up, and Jane fixed the problem with gaffer tape. She then said that last night she had been at an oxygen bar in Manayunk (a Philadelphia neighborhood); did she mean the night before, as she was in May's Chapel last night? Anyway, she mentioned that it wasn't the best place for a first date-- which led to a version of... 2. Tappan Zee ... which was even more frantic than usual. She played off the enthusiastic crowd well. She then took a seat on a stool for one song-- "I'll sit down to sing to you, like I'm a songwriter"-- and launched into... 3.Got To See The Body 4.Year of the Bad President 5. Bring Round the Boat While changing guitars and re-tuning, she told us that Linda (from the previous song) moved to another continent, and sent an email which read "I'll never fall in love again"... and Susan warbled a few lines of that Bacharach-David song! ... before declaring that Linda's next email read "I'm waitin' at the station..." 6. Time Between Trains 7. Like Bonsai OK, up to this point it's your standard, pleasant singer-songwriter gig with better-than-standard songs. Then Susan gets to the third verse of "Like Bonsai", and the line "And your mother said even very clever girls are better off at home"-- and she loses it. Fighting back tears, she soldiers on and strums the guitar as if her life depended on it. She describes a moment of pain that led to a lifetime of misery... and the pain hits her, and hits us, brutally. I'm reminded of when she headlined at the Keswick after the release of LOTGSG; she sang a song that night which she described as being about her uncle, and about "the worst day of his life." I can't remember the words or the melody, but I remember Susan being so choked up at the end that she quipped that her New Year's resolution would be to "stop having emotions." Moments like this are rare, even with Susan; can you think of any other performer who's done anything remotely close to this? She crystallized an emotional moment perfectly in her lyrics, yet even after singing the song hundreds of times, she still can't detach herself from the emotions that inspired her. Amazing. OK, digression over... back to Appel Farm. Susan headed over to the electric piano for two songs. She started with a new one, which I believe is called... 8. You Make Me Dream This song was wonderful! She introduced it as a song inspired by going to the Wawa (convenience store) every morning at the same time for coffee and seeing a particular guy, and even though you know nothing will probably happen, even if you're married, you can't help but happily dream a little. She said that it was a song for an album she intends to record one day of "songs inspired by other songwriters." I couldn't place a particular songwriter's style in this, but it was a very smoky, bluesy ballad. Kind of like "Maybe If I Sang Cole Porter," but with a minor-key melody (and a minor-key sensibility). I looked around the audience and saw a lot of smiles on this one (a woman in her sixties was especially happy). She then declared that she always pictured moments like the one in the Wawa as "being in some sort of art film, and... oh, let's just get to it!" And she launched into... 9. Movie Of My Life Returning to the guitar, she noted a girl in the audience had been singing along; she asked her age, and the girl replied "Nine." Susan couldn't believe that the girl was so rapt, especially on the line about "all my sexual adventures!" 10. Standing In My Own Way Many of us gave her a standing ovation, and when she returned for her encore, she told everybody to sit down-- "I feel so bad and inadequate." "No, you're really good!" yelled a woman near me. "No, but I just sang a song about feeling bad and inadequate...." Encore: Help! DJ Helen Leicht had introduced her by noting that Susan had been one of her first interview guests when she began at WXPN in the early 90s (I remember that interview, too!). After hearing "Help!" Helen took to the microphone and said, "I'm definitely gonna have to get her in again to do that on the World Cafe." One other thing: When Susan returned to the center microphone for the last two songs, I couldn't help but notice that the previous performer, Ellis Paul, was standing a few feet behind the stage completely mesmerized by her performance. Then again, maybe he was just checking out her butt... :>) After the show, Susan went to the "meet and greet" booth and spent about an hour autographing and chatting. She was a hit there, too. So, as you can tell, another great show. (I think this is #21 for me.) Best moment: She went from the raw intensity of "Like Bonsai" to the charm of "You Make Me Dream" effortlessly. And the story about going to the Wawa was cute, too. Although she still hasn't answered the question she posed last year at Borders in Bryn Mawr: Does she go to the Wawa in Ardmore (which is convenient), or the Wawa in Bryn Mawr (which, being in a pricier neighborhood, puts more effort into stocking the gourmet coffee flavors)? Inquiring minds want to know!! As for me, I go to the Wawa in Narberth, but Ardmore's only two miles away. And I've switched from coffee to green tea, so what do I know? Can't wait to see her again at Penn's Landing (her third appearance at the XPN Singer Songwriter Weekend) on July 17. - -Tim HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at songs.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 20:06:16 -0700 From: "Ron Rosen" Subject: Re: Appel Farm Review Thanks for the great post, Tim. >better-than-standard songs. Then Susan gets to the third verse of "Like >Bonsai", and the line "And your mother said even very clever girls are >better off at home"-- and she loses it. Fighting back tears, she soldiers on >and strums the guitar as if her life depended on it. She describes a moment >of pain that led to a lifetime of misery... and the pain hits her, and hits >us, brutally. That's why she's so great. - --- Ron (1st Nashville fan who happens to live in LA) Susan Werner Related Accomplishments: Author: Sorry About Susan Werner Cha Cha Demonstrator: First McCabe's Show First told Jane about McCabe's Guitar Shop Don't Miss the Upcoming Movie: Ron Rosen's Amazing Life HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at songs.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 23:11:16 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) From: Leslie Dreyer Kalra Subject: bring on the pins/shirts!!!! Okay, that's enough of missing meetings with fellow believers! Tim, if I had known that you were only going to be gone for a few minutes, I would have hung around. As it was, I stood in line to talk to Susan for about half an hour with my daughter (we got her program signed, since we already have each CD signed), so we probably would have seen each other if we had known each other!! This is silly! I was way in the back, stage left, for the whole concert, so I missed a lot of what Tim posted. We could hear clearly when she sang, but most of what she said was lost -- I think the speakers in the back just weren't loud enough. I could only hear clearly when I sat right next to the speaker, and my 2-year-old wasn't inclined to stay in one place for very long (except when a SW fan let her blow bubbles with a way-cool bubble "gun" -- that was good for half an hour), so I didn't find this concert to be as satisfying as most. Certainly wasn't the fault of the venue or Susan, though -- just my bad hearing, a large crowd, and a small child...:) I hope Susan can move to the Meadow Stage in later years -- I really liked that venue when we saw The Nields. I could hear everything, even with the large crowd and all the talking and moving around going on... Leslie HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at songs.com ------------------------------ End of believers-digest V3 #124 ******************************* --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- This has been a posting from the Susan Werner believers-digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers-digest" in the body of the message